Jena requested PM to visit Orissa shortly and review several ongoing Centrally-sponsored welfare program in the state to which the latter agreed.”

There was a similar report about Union Minister of State (MOS) for Rural Development Chandrasekhar Sahu meeting the PM and Dr. Singh agreeing to come to Orissa.

And that he may announce some new institutes such as Indian Institute of Handloom Technology.

Lets compare an IIT with the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) in terms of investment, said an analyst.

As per the budget of the Department of Textiles the total money for human resource development is Rs 3 crores.

It seems like this Rs. 3 crore includes the budget for 4 existing handloom institutes and probably as well as the new one proposed in Bargarh.

In contrast there is Rs. 80 crores towards the groundwork for 3 new IITs and Rs. 1553 crores for the exisiting 7 IITs .

So annual budget of an existing IIT is Rs. 222 crores while for an IIHT (Indian Institute of Handloom Technology) it is at best Rs. 1 crore.

Similarly it takes Rs. 1000-4000 crores to make an IIT and for an handloom institute would be costing Rs. 5-10 crores at best.

IITs offer B.tech. M.Tech and Ph.Ds and IIHT offers only diplomas.

…

But Congress MPs both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha kept mum.

The other day when the Opposition Leader J B Patnaik was asked about IIT he said the State Government is not serious about the issue as they have not sent any formal proposal to open an IIT to the Centre.

But what prohibits you to raise the issue and impress the PM for an IIT, he engaged himself in the blame game.

The point is abundantly clear that the myopic and timid leaders of the Congress are not in a position to put their weight on the central leadership for an emotional and justified demand like an IIT.

The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for introduction of a new Central Sector Scholarship Scheme of Top Quality Higher Education to Students belonging to Scheduled Tribes, to be implemented from 2007-08.

The Directorate of Construction, Services & Estate Management of DAE has published tenders for both the academic and the residential complex of NISER. The following table shows the Name of the work, the associated number, the sale period and the tender documents.

These days the NISER, Bhubaneswar website seems to be very slow. We are putting a copy of their application form and information brochure in another location so that people having a hard time downloading it from NISER website can down load it from here (application form, information brochure). Both can be also obtained from the Homi Bhabha site of NISERNEST.
Please note that the last date of receipt of application form is June 8′ 2007.

Following is my archive of the NISER web pages as archived on April 25′ 2007.

Daily News and Analysis reported that the central government plans to set up five new Centres for IITs of Basic Sciences in the country, to churn out the best minds in basic sciences. Following is an excerpt.

“These centres are being set up in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Mohali. The Department of Atomic Energy Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (UM-DAE CEBS) at Mumbai University, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)-Kolkata, IISER-Mohali and the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER)-Bhubhaneshwar in Orissa will be the new major centres for basic sciences,”

Added by Chitta: This news item forgets about IISER Pune, does not mention the announced IISERs in Bhopal and Trivendram and puts UM-DAE at the same level as NISER/IISER. At this point it is not clear if UM-DAE will be at the level of NISER/IISER. The above news item does confirm that out in Mumbai some view NISER and IISER at the same level. Such perception is perhaps important from NISER’s point of view as there will be five IISERs (compounding their publicity and alumni size) but one NISER.

At the Xavier’s Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar, the fresh batch will start on June 15. The institute has got an All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval to all its programmes and has thus decided to roll out new courses in econometrics, financial modelling and regulatory finance.

The institute will also start fresh courses in executive development programme through satellite training.

This academic year is significant to us as we got all our programmes approved by AICTE. We will be rolling out many more courses and will also be recruiting new faculty members this year, said Brijraj Mohanty, acting dean, XIM-B. XIM-B is also looking for a new campus in Orissa.

With the Class X result out there have many many ads for various plus 2; most of them for plus 2 sc. Following is a collection of the ads that I came across. An earlier list is at http://www.orissawatch.org/?p=182.

Financial Express probes the efficacy of big spending of UPA in last three years in primary education in the hinterland of the country.

It says the Orissa state government has created an online database of all the 98 lakh children between the 1-14 years age group.

It continues on saying that the Orissa state government wants to use Sarva Sikhya Abhiyan to enroll all children between 6-14 years of age in schools but this attempt, many say, has failed. But nothing is hunky dory. To make matters worse, students enroll and drop out after obtaining scholarships, a problem which is acute in districts like Kalahandi. Moreover, attendance is as low as 30 to 50% in most schools and the school dropout rate is as high as 50%, according to various estimates.

The government must choose alternative way like establishing primary school in every village which has more than 250 populations in hinterland such as KBK (where many villages are located in deep forest).

New Indian Express reports that Institute of Mathematics in Bhubaneswar is taking a lead in creating a new and improved high school Mathematics text in Oriya. Following is an excerpt from that report.

… the citybased Institute of Mathematics and Applications (IMA) has come forward with a project on textbook in two volumes in Oriya.

“The USP of these books are their content: Need-based, contemporary and specially written for those HSC passouts of Oriya medium schools,” says IMA Director Prof Swadhin Pattnaik.

The project, which began earlier this year would be completed in June so that by July the students will get the books through the Textbook Bureau, he says adding these books, apart from inspiring the students to take the subject more seriously, would help in easy understanding of the subject without going for tuitions.

The panel of writers include eminent mathematician and former vice-chancellor of Utkal University Prof Gokulananda Das, Prof PC Das of IIT Kanpur and Prof Pattnaik and mathematicians drawn from the apex colleges of the State.

From the psychological point of view, students can do better if they understand the subject in their mother tongue.